


A Star in a Stoneboat

by GlassGazer



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Female James T. Kirk, Gen, I have no idea what I'm doing, Jess is kicking ass and taking names, Jessamine "Tibby" Kirk - Freeform, Tarsus IV, not entirely canon compliant, will probably grow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassGazer/pseuds/GlassGazer
Summary: There’s really only one thing to look at.Up-She blinks.-and the world multiplies tenfold, twenty, greater than any equation known to man or woman. It is a thousand infinitesimal suns across a million different seas, billions of skies spanning innumerable mountains and valleys. It is a kaleidoscope of realities Tibby sees, and for the span of a second she imagines herself visiting them all.Winona sighs, and the vision leaves.





	A Star in a Stoneboat

The stardate is 2233.04 and the _USS Kelvin_ is dying.

A baby girl is born whole in the void of the unknown, an afterthought of flames and a man’s sacrifice. Wreckage hurtles past hundreds of escape pods in what will be one of the greatest catastrophes of modern space expedition.

Representors of the Federation assure the masses that Starfleet is actively involved in the case.

Later, the tabloids will mourn the loss of Captain Robau while tastefully covering the heroism of George Kirk and the valiant efforts of the _USS Kelvin_ crew _._ A plaque dedicated to those lost in the antecedent missile strikes will be mounted in the Iowa Federation HQ.

Life goes on.

.

In a special _Star Weekly_ issue on the year anniversary, the late Kirk’s wife is available for a short interview in which one quote stands among the rest.

_“She has her father’s eyes.”_

.

Stars on a bed, the walls, the floor. They take the form of plushies and paintings, hard candies and the odd toothbrush, nail filer, nightlight.

The ceiling is dazzled with dozens of stick-on glow-in-the-dark’s and new ones are added every day. The year might be 2235.45, but plastic never goes out of style.

The pillow at the end of a short-stack bed is embroidered ‘ _Tibby’,_ because ‘Jessamine’ is a hell of a word to pronounce at two-years-old and Tiberius is hardly even a _person’s_ name.

 _Besides,_ Winona explains to her tentative new boyfriend, _it’s cute. It suits her just fine._

Tibby perks at the sound of her name and grins wide, blond hair sticking out like a sunflower on acid.

No one knows it, but the world will eat those words twenty-three years later.

.

Half of the galaxy knows her name before she does.

_Isn’t that the Kelvin Baby-_

_\- late Captain George Kirk’s second child-_

_-did her mother-_

_-Starfleet._

People say that last word a lot to her. The morning television. Walking on the street down to the local toy bin. The man who handed them their ice cream last Sunday at _Donnie’s Creamery_. A word’s important if you say it enough, so Tibby’s pretty sure this is one to remember.

She repeats it one breakfast to the table and Winona’s face explodes into a humongous grin. Frank glowers.

All in all, a win.

.

Happiness.

It’s the puppy on the farm three acres over or laying in the wheat fields under the summer sun.  Sam pushing her on the rusted swing set out back.

What Winona does at the word _space._

It’s light.

There’s another word for it but Tibby’s three and can only call it as she sees it. Yesterday when the TV turned on to show the pictures of the stars, something broke open on Winona’s face.

Bare, vulnerable and oh so precious.

It was the same look she made when Tibby asked how many stars were in the sky, because if anyone knew it would be her.

Winona smiled, _light_ , and said, “Countless. That’s why people go up, honey girl. To count them.”

.

“Momma?”

“Yeah, honey girl?”

“Tell me a story about space?”

_Light._

.

“Crickets!” she exclaims. Further away she can hear Sam snort, but mom blocks her brother’s silhouette.

 _“Hush,_ look,” mom whispers. Her hand is warm and rough against Tibby’s smaller one, and it’s the tight grip that carries her along relatively unscathed in the Old McGuffin’s uneven field. Under the moonlight the cornstalks hulk over them all, not even Sam’s lanky build having hold on them.

Between her bare toes- Winona rushed them out in a hurry not to wake Frank, _“He wouldn’t understand”_ \- mud births small mountains, or maybe smaller cornrows, and isn’t that a bit funny to think about, because if the mountains are small and the cornrows are smaller, then how small are they?

Calloused fingers gently push Tibby’s chin up, and she follows the motion up, up, up.

There’s really only one thing to look at.

Up-

She blinks.

-and the world multiplies tenfold, twenty, greater than any equation known to man or woman. It is a thousand infinitesimal suns across a million different seas, billions of skies spanning innumerable mountains and valleys. It is a kaleidoscope of realities Tibby sees, and for the span of a second she imagines herself visiting them all.

Winona sighs, and the vision leaves.

.

It doesn’t take long to realize her life isn’t normal. Because really, you can only find a guy with a camera lingering in the bushes so many times before som _e_ questions have to be answered.

“They’re interested in us,” Sam says once she asks him. They sit in a small grove down the river bank, dewy glasses of lemonade clutched in their sweaty palms. He leans back with one barefoot mounted on his knee, adding a leg-long shadow to the already scattered collection left by the leaves overhead.

“What’s that?” Tibby asks.

Sam snorts. “Hasn’t mom ever told you who dad was?”

No, but she doesn’t want to admit that. At seven, Tibby has a healthy respect for sibling dynamics and there’s no way she’s going to make the kid-sister position any worse.

“Kinda,” she says.

Her brother sighs. He looks older than usual. “Dad was a hero. Not like the cartoons,” he clarifies at seeing her wide eyes. “But sorta better. He saved a lot of people when no one expected him to, and he saved you and mom and probably a whole lot of others in the galaxy, too.” A breeze picks up, disturbing the branches and sending a flutter of shadows across his face.

“People know us, Tibs,” he mutters. “They knew you the minute you were born. That’s what it means to be interesting.”

At this moment, her brother looks older than ten and years older than twenty. Tibby doesn’t get it.

Two weeks later she’s cornered near the bathrooms in _Danny’s Diner_ by a photographer with stale breath and glassy eyes. Winona’s nowhere to be found, and that’s a new sort of disappointment that grows with every month.

Tibby tries to step around him but there’s a tiny click and a flash of light, and once the haze leaves her eyes it’s to reveal the guy has planted himself in her path.

“I need to go,” she says helplessly, wringing her hands in her galaxy t-shirt.

“Where is your family going?” He snaps off another picture. _Click, flash._

Her bottom lip threatens to quiver but Tibby bites it down hard, curling her fists into tiny balls. “I need to _go._ ”

The photographer pauses, seemingly just now realizing where he has her. He shifts out of the way but only just, and the musky smell of tobacco rubs onto her clothes when she scrapes by. He’s still watching her as the bathroom door slides shut.

Five minutes later, Tibby has a few extra scrapes from climbing out the too-small restroom window and Winona is none the wiser. Sam takes one look at her and frowns but doesn’t ask. There’s a new man at her mom’s side, tall and built in the way Frank isn’t with official clothes to boot.

“With all due respect, Officer Kirk-” he’s saying, but her mom’s face closes in that way it does whenever someone calls her by that name.

“It’s Officer McKinnon, now,” Winona bites.

The man leans back with an introspective glint in his eye, but before he can finish his attention suddenly drops to Tibby.

His brow wrinkles at the new hole in her shirt. “How’d you get that, kid?”

“Oh,” Winona says, taking a second look at her appearance. Her lips purse. “Tibby and Sam love to rough house.”

The man drops it, and Tibby’s shoulders droop a tiny bit. Maybe in relief, maybe something else.

But at least she gets it. If this is what it means to be interesting, someone else can have it.

.

Frank is in her room one day. The paper stars hanging in her doorway brush his head and shoulders, jostling when he brushes them aside.

“Your mom wants you,” he announces. Tibby stops from where she’s been working on a puzzle of the Alpha Quadrant. Her hair is mussed and knotty, probably the reason why mom wants her in the first place, so she brushes it out of the way and stands.

Frank hasn’t left. Blinking slowly, she looks up. This makes her nervous.

“For what?” Tibby asks.

Only then does Frank leave.

.

“I’m going to space,” mom announces. _Light._

Sam has his feet on the kitchen table, chair kicked back and a frown plastered across his face. He looks angrier than usual, but then again so does Frank.

Tibby is nothing if not the opposite. Space is _awesome,_ and she says just as much. Winona grins sunnily and rubs Tibby’s hair into disarray.

Sam’s expression darkens. “I thought you hated him.”

Winona’s brows raise. “Hated who?”

“That Starfleet guy. You were talking to him all-”

“Wait, you didn’t tell me Pike was the one who talked you into this!” Frank sits up, eyes ablaze.

“-angrily, and he called you the wrong name and you _hate_ it when people do that,” Sam continues over Frank’s outburst.

“You talked to a fish?!” Tibby yells over the din. For some reason, no one answers.

There’s a flurry of motion, and suddenly Winona is kicking back her chair to pound her fists on the tabletop. “This was my choice! My decision!”

She’s panting, glaring into Frank’s eyes who also stands. His jaw clenches beneath the thick beard he wears, an ugly purple vein popping out on his temple, but he takes his leave in silence.

Well, relative silence. The chair he sends knocking over breaks into splinters against the fridge. Sam glances at the shambles and rubs his nose, turning back to their mother with an accusatory look.

A strangled sob escapes her. “This was _my_ life.”

Winona rests her face in her hands. The dust settles in fairytale glitter, the kind of sparkle dirt makes when the sun hits it just right.

It’s kind of like a dream, really.

.

Life changes after The Announcement. Sam hardly ever hangs out with Tibby, preferring to take his dinner in their shared room with a glum face. Frank grows another edge to his face by the days. Winona seems unaware to anything except for outer space.

_Light._

Tibby sets her mind on learning more about this “Starfleet”, because not only does it have the word ‘stars’ but ‘fleet’ which rhymes with _feet,_ and Tibby likes her feet so she’s bound to like this.

She gathers all of the files and pamphlets and press releases on Winona’s holo tablet, holes herself up in the thickets by their small farm house and gets to reading. She has to turn on the vocal setting because some of the words are too big, and at the three-hour mark the automated voice is the most she’s heard someone else speak in a week.

Star-feet sounds really cool, except for the tiny skirts for the girls and the ugly yellow the captain has to wear. Tibby sucks at running in skirts, and in Winona’s stories people run a lot in space.

“Starfleet,” Tibby mutters. The wind picks up.

.

“Mom, the guy is here!” Sam yells from the foot of the stairs, then disappears back into the basement he’s claimed as his own for the past week. The only reason he gets away with yelling like that is because Frank is out, which means Tibby gets away with sliding down the bannister before Winona sees. She hides behind the sofa as the front door opens.

“Officer McKinnon,” the man nods. He doesn’t fidget when Winona doesn’t immediately step aside for him, but something in his stance shifts when she finally does.

Tibby quickly ducks from view, holding her breath when the pair passes by into the kitchen.

“Come to talk some sense into me?” Winona asks.

“Maybe. I take it Frank isn’t too happy?” The man- Pike was his name _-_ says.

There’s no telling what gave it away, and Winona seems to share this thought when in the other room, she scoffs, asks, “What gave it away?”

“The chair is missing. Your grandmother’s, right? The family portrait on your side table is face down. And, there’s enough tension in the air Cadet Ellie could probably pluck it like one of her harps.”

Silence. Then, “She always loved her music, huh?” There’s a smile in her voice.

“ _Loves_ ,” Pike corrects. His voice softens. “You don’t have to go up, you know. I only stopped by check up on you and the kids. I was surprised you had applied for salvage.”

“You shouldn’t have been,” Winona says. Her shadow flits across the opposite wall, giving the impression of a long-limbed spider. “You know I’ve had this on my mind for years.”

“There’s still going to be a surplus of tests,” Pike warns. “You’ve been technically off-duty, and you’ll be gone more days then you think if you pursue this. Then you’ll be gone.”

“I want this,” Winona begins to say before Pike finishes. “They… _No_ one understands how much I need this. And Sam and Jessamine, they deserve to know what happened to their father.”

“They do, or you?”

“Chris.” Winona steps forward. “We have history, and I could even call you my friend if you weren’t such an ass on a sunny day. But if you insinuate that I’m putting my personal happiness over my children just _one more time_ , all of that’s going out the door.”

Tibby feels her heart lift.

“Don’t give me that motherly-goodness shit, Winona,” Pike _bites,_ and wow did that crash hurt. “You’re telling me that those kids haven’t been living in the shadow of George since the day your baby girl was born? And what, Frank’ll take care of them? I’ve searched his record.”

“Don’t you dare,” Winona begins.

“It’s time to accept _it._ Your husband isn’t out there.”

The whole house echoes with the sound of Winona’s hand high fiving Pike’s face. “I know he’s dead,” Winona seethes. “I know it. I know, I know, _I know._ I- I know…” the words die off.

Pike makes a shushing sound, and what follows is a moment of silence that has Tibby crawling to the edge of the doorway in curiosity.

Her mother is all but collapsed in the man’s arms, body shaking with silent sobs. “I can’t bear it- _not_ knowing. I have to do this, Chris. And the kids, they’ll do alright. They’ll have to.”

Pike exhales, and it casts a million shadows across his face that make him look terribly old. “The shortest deployment we have is five years. You know that.”

Winona nods.

“Okay. I’ll let command know to prepare another bed.” He pulls back, exposing Winona’s tear streaked face to the yellow light of their kitchen. “Take these next few weeks with your family. Make some memories that will last.”

With that, he straightens his jacket and exits the doorway with the surety of a man who knows his way around.

“Wait.”

Pike turns.

“Keep an eye out while I’m gone, won’t you?” Winona sounds not _scared_ , but the innate confidence in her voice is missing. What is born from her voice is an ugly, hollow thing. Pike opens his mouth to respond, but something catches his eye.

Tibby’s heart is in her throat when she realizes he’s staring at her foot. She’s too far into panicking to think it’ll be a bad idea if she moves, and by the time she’s curled into a ball the man has a hawk-like focus on her face.

“I will,” Pike says. His gaze does not waver. He turns and leaves through the front door.

Tibby stands. The house is silent the rest of the evening.

.

She’s eight going on nine when the sheer _unattainability_ of space becomes apparent.

Jessamine Tiberius Kirk sits under the caving banister of the front porch. The blazing Iowa sun will give her a sunburn later, leave dotted freckles along her cheekbones, but a little girl doesn’t think about tricky things like that.

They think about where their mother is going, and why.

“Tibby? Honey girl?”

She looks up and has to squint against the afternoon light.

Winona Kirk is the spitting image of a sun goddess and some vintage actress from the history books, all blinding teeth and dark eyes, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders.

Her mother kneels in front of her, shoes grinding up dust. Tibby fixes her eyes stubbornly over her shoulder.

“It’s only going to be five years, ‘kay?” Winona says. Her smile doesn’t falter. There isn’t a memory Tibby has that features her with anything less than a wild grin.

Tibby chews the inside of her mouth, pursing her lips. She knows a response is expected from her, but maybe if she doesn’t say a thing, mom will have to stick around and wait for once.

An engine roars in the distance, the smell of car exhaust following it.

“C’mon, Winones! You can finish up your goodbyes on the ride over.” The voice is tinged with a growl of whiskey and smoke.

“Frank, could you just-” her mother starts. Winona sighs, and now Tibby is afraid to see her with anything less than a smile. Her eyes shut of their own accord, lips smash together just in case something slips out.

“Tibby.” Soft, resigned. “I have to do this. Your father,” her voice slips up, and Tibby waits for a terrified second till her mother takes a deep breath. “The _USS Kelvin’s_ destroyer may still be out there, and we can’t let an attack like that happen again.” A pause. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

A petite but rough-palmed hand tousles her hair, and the scuffle of Starfleet-issued boots on gravel scrapes by. Then the engine fades away.

Years later, Jessamine Tiberius “Tibby” Kirk will understand.

That doesn’t make it any better.

.

 

“Tibby, get your pasty ass down here!”

Tibby is nine when Frank’s vocabulary has expanded as much as his gut. Since he hardly said a word to either her or Sam when mom was still on Earth, it’s pretty big.

It’s been seven months and sixteen days since Winona left. The cookbook from her great grandma sits out on the kitchen counter, flipped open to the strawberry waffles they had for dinner seven months and seventeen days before.

Tibby glances down at its worn pages. When she looks up, Frank is sitting in his seat at the kitchen table, silent.

“Make them,” he says.

“Huh?”

Frank frowns, and at her age she can only think how much of an ape he looks. With a balance of common sense and self preservation, she refrains from making monkey sounds.

“Are you going to make me repeat myself, girl?” he asks. Below the table, she thinks she spots a flash of metal.

A breath catches in her throat. When she shakes her head, it almost dislodges it.

With stubby kid fingers and messy blond bangs tumbling over her eyes, her first of many strawberry waffles are served up on an old Christmas platter. Gingerbread men and candy canes wink from underneath a whopping heap of butter and maple syrup. The way the light flashes when her hands shake makes them look like they’re dancing.

Frank wrinkles his nose once the plate is set down, but he doesn’t complain and that’s as good as a reaction as any.

A stab of the fork, a swallow she copies.

Then, “Tastes like shit.”

And that’s how Tibby learns how to cook.

.

She’s ten when she’s firing shots of blazing light into the night sky.

An old phaser, all bulk and sharp edges and leaving an even sharper ring through her bones, births fire with a finesse Tibby can hardly call her own.

Earlier that day, before Frank woke up and left the downstairs couch he’d passed out on at some point, she found the phaser buried in the boxes containing the remains of George Kirk’s belongings.

There isn’t nearly enough in there to warrant the life of the man whose shadow is too damn long, but between a holo of her grandma and a pressed flower in the pages of _Great Expectations,_ the phaser almost makes up for it.

_Almost._

It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth and a scream in her throat to find the shots look just like shooting stars.

.

Tibby turns eleven in a rage befitting a twister. She rips off the sleeves of Winona’s old Starfleet academy sweatshirt and ties one around Frank’s feet while he’s passed out on a dusty duvet. The other she ties around her head like the muscle guy from the classic shooter movies.

 _This is my war cry,_ she thinks, knuckles clenched white on a 1966 Mustang steering wheel. It doesn’t make much sense, but it fits as much as the wind in her hair, fits like the dust in her eyes.

And it definitely fits when Frank’s baby explodes in fiery destruction.

 

Her first word is _Starfleet,_ believe it or not. Some call it destiny. Tibby calls it shitty parenting.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was a bit of a surprise. I know next to nothing about Star Trek, but Star Trek Beyond inspired me to write a little drabble and this thing happened. I found it on my computer a year later and don't know if I plan on continuing it, but I have more written up. Let me know if you're interested.


End file.
